The original publication is available at http://www.bsw.org/Biblica/Vol-87-2006/Lexical-Meaning-In-Biblical-Hebrew-And-Cognitive-Semantics-A-Case-Study/97/

Article

In a recent survey of Biblical Hebrew lexica(l), it was pointed out that the
theoretical frames of reference underlying both the older classics such as
Brown-Driver-Briggs (=BDB)(2) and Koehler and Baumgartner (=KB)e), as
well as the more recent Dictionary of Classical Hebrew ( =DCH) (4), can be
called into question(S). Two weaknesses were highlighted. Firstly, the layout
and structure of these dictionaries reflect very little of the wealth of insights
provided by theoretical lexicography (i.e. the theoretical reflection about the
practice of dictionary making) and dictionary criticism in recent years (6).
Secondly, the semantic model(s) underlying available Biblical Hebrew
dictionaries are either outdated (in the case ofBDB and KB), or represent a very
narrow and inadequate version of what modern linguistics has to offer for
Biblical Hebrew lexicology (in the case ofDCH). If one considers, even in very
broad terms, recent developments in the field of semantics, in particular
cognitive semantics, the shortcomings of bilingual Biblical Hebrew-English
dictionaries that provide mere translation glosses (in the case of BDB and KB),
or glosses supplemented with lists of the systematic syntagmatic distribution of
lexical items (in the case of Clines) soon become evident. For example, if one
accepts the insights about the ways in which humans across languages use
linguistic terms to categorize their world, and the cultural embedment of
languages' lexical stock, a new perspective emerges on the type of information
that is indispensable in a bilingual dictionary of which the source and target
languages are remote in time and space. However, although cognitive semantics
provides promising new perspectives on the notion of "lexical meaning", it does
not present - as any other linguistic theory does - a ready-made model that
can merely be applied to an ancient language like Biblical Hebrew. Issues that
are still debated, for example, are the exact role that syntactic and encyclopedic
information should play in the analysis and interpretation of lexical items.